5.29.2007

At the end of last week, Apple’s San Francisco's downtown Retail Store was the scene of a rather gruesome event, involving the undead. A roaming group of zombies assaulted the store, hunting for brains, scaring customers and gnawing on iMacs. Apparently, the Apple Store employees had no problem with the zombies, welcoming them and taking part in the antics.

Part of an event titled "SF Zombie Mob 2007," and organized by the people at eatbrains.com, the zombie group was similar to a flash mob and took place at the same time as the Critical Mass bicycle ride. There were quite a number of participants who made their way across the streets engaging in various zombie antics, which typically revolve around looking scary, eating brains and losing various body parts along the way. Despite sounding rather messy, the event was quite polite and only passers-by that volunteered were subjected to zombie-fication.The number of people participating is unknown but estimated above150. After crossing the shopping district, the mob decided to converge on Union Square after which they shuffled through the nearby businesses. These included Apple store, Nordstrom, the Disney store and the Westfield Mall.

Both Westfield Mall and Disney security tried to prevent the zombies from entering their establishments, but the Apple Store made no such efforts. Despite sampling the Apple offerings, the zombies ultimately decided that brains were better and returned to the basics of their diet.The Apple Store salespeople seemed to be enjoying the event, jostling one another for positions where they could take photos of the zombies and getting their brains eaten or having photographs taken of them in zombies' company.It seems that Apple has no problems with the dead, as long as they don’t log onto MySpace and vacate the premises in a timely manner.